Old Lilac

[LexMitior]

I have an old lilac which I inherited when I bought a house a few years ago. The former owner had never pruned it and so it had some very splindly growth and a small amount of flowers at the top. But it was flowering.

I cleared a lot of the garden and gave the lilac a prune. It is in the shade of a privet hedge.

The lilac has now sulked for two years. No flowers, leaf curl and mildew which can affect the other shrubs. It is a well established plant but in the wrong place. It is old. At what point do I just take it out?

I think you've answered your own question op - its in the wrong place, take it out.

They don’t flower on new shoots, it takes a couple of years to start flowering after a heavy prune.

It is possible to move a large lilac, given a supply healthy teenage boys for the lifting. But better just to-remove it and start again in a different place

If it is in the shade of a privet hedge, that explains why it had grown tall in the first place, it was reaching for the light.

Give it another year and if it is still sulking, then maybe that will be the time to get rid of it.

Aha! Well I give to the spring. It would be the devil to move it now - but I do have an Acer that would look good and do better in that spot.